. >> so all this rang lg about the fiscal cliff isn't the goal. with the president asking for $50 billion in stimulus spending, do you worry they might be losing sight of that? >> the best thing for the country is to go over the fiscal cliff. it maximizing the deficit reduction. there's no deal cut between republicans and democrats. it's not going to reduce the amount of money coming out of the deficit by a lot. so if you do that, you go back to the clinton tax rates, cut some defense and we have a short, mild recession for two quarters. we have to get serious about the deficit e. i have no belief that the congress is going to get serious about the deficit. so tom cole was right because he wants to get the republicans back in the mainstream. but the best thing the country could do is go over the cliff. >> timothy geithner doesn't agree with you on that. >> he may or may not. but i looked at this a lot of ways. the people inside washington are awfully smart and awfully out of touch. we need to do something about the deficit. going over the fiscal c